


balada

by boom_slap



Series: symphonies and other things [2]
Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boom_slap/pseuds/boom_slap
Summary: “It’s about the Professor?” he asks, just to be sure.“It’s about me,” Martín mutters, his jaw set tight.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Palermo | Martín Berrote, Helsinki | Mirko Dragic & Palermo | Martín Berrote, Helsinki | Mirko Dragic/Palermo | Martín Berrote, Palermo | Martín Berrote & Professor | Sergio Marquina
Series: symphonies and other things [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774996
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	balada

**Author's Note:**

> Martín is a cancer. I would know. I'm a cancer.

Mirko senses Martín’s uneasiness like it’s a tangible thing. It sort of is, with the way his whole body tenses as they get closer to the coast. Mirko knows better than to hold him; it’s enough that Martín lets his shoulder brush against Mirko’s arm.

“It’s about the Professor?” he asks, just to be sure.

“It’s about me,” Martín mutters, his jaw set tight. Mirko looks at his face, at his desperately sad eyes, then, he turns his head towards the west. Gently, he taps his knuckles against Martín’s arm.

“Look,” he says. “Beautiful colors.”

It’s a distraction, but an honest one. The sky is a spill of blue, purple, red, orange, yellow, the clouds like cotton candy. Martín squints a little against the sun. He looks, even though the bright light is hurting him.

Mirko gives him a moment to do just that, but enough is enough and he gently covers Martín’s eyes with his hand. He remembers Palermo spitting and thrashing around with the bandage wrapped around his head, the blindness making him feral. Martín sighs and leans against him, quiet and trustful.

It feels good to hug the Professor, but Martín is still rigid as he’s getting a hug of his own; he looks trapped and even scared. When he pulls away from the Professor, Mirko puts a hand at the back of his neck, stroking gently with his thumb.

The Professor glances between the two of them, nods, as if to himself, and doesn’t say anything.

They’re walking down the corridor with the Professor and Lisboa, who looks at them over her shoulder.

“I take it there’s no need for separate rooms?” she smiles.

Mirko looks at Martín, but he only smiles back at her with something like gratitude.

“No need,” he says.

They reach the door and Mirko thanks their hosts, walks inside, but Martín lingers in the doorway, frowning slightly. He looks up at the Professor and licks his lips before speaking.

“Have you-... kept anything of his?”

Mirko sees that Martín is carefully avoiding his gaze. Berlín is like a ghost that lingers one step behind them. At least he’s not ahead anymore, with Martín chasing him. He’s still there, though, and they’re trying to domesticate him.

The Professor takes a deep breath, then nods.

“Wait here,” he says and walks away. Lisboa glances at Mirko before following.

Martín stands still for a moment, his back turned to Mirko. Then, slowly, with his gaze lowered, he walks over to him and climbs into his lap, wrapping his arms around him.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters into his ear.

“It’s okay,” Mirko says, stroking his back. The pain he feels is more like compassion than jealousy.

They stay like that until the Professor comes back with a folder, which he hands to Martín without a word as Martín slips off of Mirko’s lap.

“Thanks,” Martín mutters and the Professor gives him a tight smile before quietly leaving the room.

The folder turns out to be filled with drawings.

“ _Oh,_ ” the sound is choked as Martín pulls out the papers. “Look, _Mirko_ , they’re from Toledo. That’s you!”

He smiles up at him and Mirko almost melts on the spot. He stares down at the sketches, at his own face, at Nairobi’s, which makes his chest ache, at Oslo’s, Moscú’s, Denver’s…

On one of the pages, he sees the familiar smile, the big nose and the long lashes, the soft gaze and the hair that Mirko knows to be fluffier than it looks.

Martín is quiet as he looks at his own face. His fingers trail over the paper, shaking as they reach the date scribbled there. _Septiembre 2016_.

Mirko wonders if he’s going to flee. He wonders if he’s going to hide away somewhere, find a bottle of alcohol and drown himself in it; if he’s going to stay quiet for days, turning into a ghost himself.

Instead, Martín puts the folder away and curls up against Mirko’s side.

 _Qué sabes tú de dolor, Palermo?,_ he had asked and now he knows. He knows and he can’t understand Berlín who had managed to turn away such love.

He pulls Martín back into his lap and kisses away the tears. Martín shakes his head, says “no” and brushes his lips against Mirko’s, softly, _lovingly._ He’s impossible, Mirko thinks, he’s beyond comprehension.

That night, they sleep wrapped up in each other.

In the morning, Mirko goes to have breakfast with the Professor and Lisboa, as well as the little girl and the older lady. Martín stays in their room, looking through the drawings, but his smile is honest when he tells Mirko not to worry.

Mirko likes the Professor’s own little family and the breakfast is very nice. Afterwards, he gets up to leave and the Professor stands up as well, stopping him with a gentle hand on his arm.

“How is he?”

There’s a strain in his voice and Mirko frowns as the two of them sit back down. Lisboa lets them talk alone, pulling her daughter and her mother away and into the garden. Mirko likes her very much; she’s a good, warm person.

“He’s better,” is all he comes up with in answer to the Professor’s question. The other man nods nervously and fiddles with his hands before he speaks up again.

“If he wants to get drunk, it’s best if he does so on wine. It’ll get him to sleep. He probably never told you, but his birthday is in June, the 22nd. He doesn’t seem like it, but he likes books and- and- I guess you know how much he likes music?” the Professor is speaking quickly and Mirko nods. Most of what he’s hearing is worry and guilt that he doesn’t know the reason for.

“ _Professor_ ,” he says. “He seems to think you don’t like him.”

There’s confusion painted all over the Professor’s face as he goes quiet and still. Then, it’s replaced with pain. He closes his eyes and runs a hand down his face.

Whatever happened between him and Martín, it seems to have put a lot of weight on both of their shoulders.

He goes back to the room; Martín isn’t there and the folder is lying open on the bed, a silent reminder of everything they’ve lost. But, if Mirko could draw, he would fill it with sketches of Lisboa, Bogotá, Marsella, Manila, Matías, Estocolmo, Cincinnati, Paula.

He walks over and pulls out the picture of Martín. When he’d first met him, Palermo was a wild thing, disdainful, hateful, distant. What he sees in the drawing is surprisingly similar to what he knows now, to what he had to uncover with careful touches and gentle words. The eyes looking at him from the sketch are open and honest, even if a little sad; the only thing that’s different is the absence of those tiny, pale scars splattered around them.

He reaches into his backpack for his cigarettes, but the pack is gone and he smirks knowingly.

He finds Martín smoking on one of the many balconies; he wants to call his name, but stops, because there’s always a dilemma.

See, Martín calls him _Helsinki_ whenever he’s being playful, whenever they joke around or banter. He never calls him _Helsi_ ; he would never dare.

When he says his name, though, Mirko finds himself breathless with how soft it always is, muttered quietly and with something that Mirko would call _adoration_ if he had the audacity to do so.

Now, _Palermo_ gets thrown around in arguments, which happen rarely, but still. _Palermo_ is something angry and broken, something that never wanted to leave the Bank of Spain alive.

 _Martín_ has been offered to Mirko as a gift, as an apology, but he doesn’t use it if not necessary. Not because he doesn’t like the sound of it or anything like that, but because he knows that the name haunts Martín’s dreams and memories, spoken in a deep baritone. _Martín_ was something that belonged to Berlín; no, to _Andrés_.

So, Mirko has been carefully avoiding calling Martín anything, really, but as he steps out onto the balcony, he decides to try something.

“ _Gatito,_ ” he says and Martín turns around to look at him, his expression going from shocked through confused all the way to a kind of resigned tenderness that makes his shoulders sag as a half smile appears on his face.

“You stole my cigarettes, little thief,” Mirko steps closer and smirks when Martín laughs. He wraps his arms around him and Martín leans back easily, taking a drag before putting the cigarette to Mirko’s lips. It’s nice, intimate; lovely, really.

“You should talk to the Professor,” Mirko murmurs into his hair and he feels Martín tense up again.

“What about?” he asks in a low voice; he’s like a feral animal that’s getting ready to jump, so Mirko holds him a little bit tighter.

“About that. You’re nervous around him.”

“I’m nervous around most people.”

“Not me.”

“No, Mirko,” Martín sighs and turns his head to press a kiss to the other man’s cheek. “Not you.”

They go downstairs and Martín doesn’t talk to the Professor _per se_ , but he walks over to him and the other man looks at him with worry before putting a hand on his cheek. Mirko watches from a few steps away as Martín lowers his gaze and closes his fingers around the Professor’s wrist.

Mirko is not sure what it is that they share; grief, without a doubt, but there seems to be more. A lot of history and an unspoken solicitude, probably. _Brotherhood_ , he realizes suddenly. They look like brothers.

The Professor looks at Mirko over Martín’s shoulder.

“If you ever need something,” he says, “don’t hesitate to come to me. Oh, and-... I’m happy for you, I really am.”

Martín snorts and shakes his head as he pulls away to turn and look at Mirko.

“Truth is, you should me happy for _me._ For Helsinki here, not so much.”

They stay for a week and it’s very nice. Martín slowly eases into comfort. He talks to both the Professor and Lisboa and even helps Paula with her math homework. If by _helping_ one can understand snatching it from the poor girl’s hands and getting it done all by himself in two minutes flat, that is.

Mirko sees him pull out one of the drawings from the folder to put it inside a book of his as they pack. He doesn’t say anything and tries to ignore the brief, but sharp tugging in his chest. Of course Martín would like to keep the portrait of himself done by Berlín, a proof that he hasn’t abandoned him completely, that he’s thought about him even in Toledo. Mirko reminds himself that Martín is allowed to grieve and to remember, and he doesn’t dwell on it.

It’s only when they reach Mexico that he sees which sketch Martín had decided to take - it’s not his own portrait, but Mirko’s.

He kneels on the floor next to their bags and holds the drawing in his hands.

“Mirko?” Martín’s voice is soft as he sits cross-legged next to him. “You look like you’re about to sob, big guy.”

“You took mine,” Mirko says, incredulous.

“Well, yeah?” Martín shrugs and then laughs as he gets pulled into a hug, Mirko hiding his face in the crook of his neck, because he’s so happy he might actually cry.


End file.
